FROM

When you next see a pigeon foraging for crumbs on the sidewalk, please
know that most likely you are seeing another pigeonís beloved, another
pigeonís Shimmy.

Shimmy and Dallas, January 2016

Shimmy & Dallas were two big, scruffy rescued meat pigeons who loved each
other deeply. Thatís not unusual. Mated pigeons have incredibly strong,
emotional relationships. When Shimmyís health began to decline (he had
congestive heart failure), I brought them in from my foster aviary to my
special needs bird room and was privileged to see every day how devoted they
were. If love was a tonic, Shimmy would have been cured. Dallas did
everything he could to comfort his beloved Shimmy up to his death and
beyond.

At the Start

In March of 2014, someone brought their pet King/Carneau cross pigeon to
the San Francisco Animal Care & Control shelter and surrendered him. They
didnít mention his name. Shelter staff named him Shimmy Shimmy CoCo Pop
because, like many King pigeons, he was prone to quivering when nervous.
Shimmy, big and strong as he was, quivered a lot. He was at the shelter for
nine weeks when I finally couldnít stand it anymore and brought him home to
add to our already too big case load. I fostered him in my backyard aviary.

Within days of Shimmy getting out of the shelter, Dallas was brought in.
He was lucky enough to survive not only being sold for meat by a live
poultry market in Chinatown but also being inhumanely ďreleasedĒ to
Washington Square Park in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. He
was another King/Careau cross.

While we were full up, SFACC was even fuller and I was asked to take some
pigeons in so as to save them from being killed for space and on 6/19/14, we
took Dallas, Carlita, and sick babies Guru & Ash into our life-saving foster
care.

The flock in my aviary (Dallas second from left, Shimmy center foreground)

Dallas was a high strung, nervous and aggressive pigeon. I call him a
Type A pigeon. He didnít enjoy people at all and for the most part, I left
him home in the aviary rather than put him through the discomfort of
outreach events.

Shimmy was a big, gentle bird with a sweet though shy temperament. When I
brought him to outreach and humane education events, he always won the
hearts of those who met him.

Pigeon Love

Despite having their having such different temperaments and the same gender,
Shimmy and Dallas made a quick connection. In my aviary full of already
married pigeons and lonesome bachelors, they decided to become a couple and
by 7/28 were nesting together as a mated pair and sitting on the fake eggs
that I provided. (Married pigeons love to nest and sit on eggs and so we
provide fakes to pigeons who canít have or keep their own eggs [so as to
prevent hatching of babies]. Pigeons love having eggs to fuss over and sit
on.

Dallas and Shimmy married

Dallas and Shimmy were both King/Carneau crosses and both had
heterochromia - different color eyes. Their left eyes were gold, their right
eyes dark brown. Of the 700 pigeons and doves that we have rescued over the
past eight years, most have had or sought opposite-sex mates. We have taken
in a few same-sex couples. Billie and Alejandra came in as a mated pair of
hens but they split up as soon as the bachelors in the foster flock started
courting them, eventually marrying George & Sparks respectively. Big giant
King pigeon Lola and his tiny Fantail pigeon Luigi came to us as a mated,
same-sex couple and they stayed together, very much in love until Lolaís
death. Lady pigeons Angel and Freddie met and married in our foster care.
When potential adopters ask about keeping a pair of same sex pigeons as
pets, I tell them that if they are both female, they will most likely bond
and eventually become a mated couple. If they are both males, we have seen
them sometimes bond but we have also seen some remain persistent rivals over
long periods of time, never marrying.

Pigeon Marriages

Pigeon marriages are very complex and are much more of an emotional
relationship than just a sexual coupling. (See
Love Is Strong and Brandon
Keimís
What Pigeons Teach Us About Love.) Weíve had adult, sexually mature
pigeons remain single (and celibate) for months in a aviary together and
then, on their own personal timeline, come together and marry as Willow &
Blue did and weíve had one pigeon, Louie, who stayed resolutely single,
despite being courted, for her entire eight years with us. There was little
Bean, single, who did everything like a male pigeon until one day, upon
being introduced to Blanco, immediately fell in love at first sight and they
became inseparable. I thought they were my gay pigeons until one day, Bean
finally laid an egg and proved herself undeniably female.

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